Department of Education Extranet

Status of the 2021 admissions

The Northern Cape Department of Education sincerely apologizes for the delay in the placement of learners for the 2021 school academic year. We can assure the public that all placements will be done before schools reopen on Wednesday, 27 January 2021.

We are working with our District offices to finalise all outstanding placement offers as soon as possible.The Department received a total of 40 949 applications for the 2021 school academic year across all Grades. To date, 29 288 placement offers were generated and sent to parents.  23 923 of these parents have already accepted the placement offer and 5 365 are pending. The school population in the Northern Cape averages for the past 3 years approximately 305 000 learners, meaning that 3.8% of the total learner population in the Province must still be placed. This amounts to 11 661 learners that must still receive an offer for placement. The breakdown per District is as follows:

- Frances Baard: 8 129 offers issued (4 701 outstanding offers)

- John Toalo Gaetsewe: 7 263 offers issued (4 304 outstanding offers)

- Pixley Ka Seme: 4 170 offers issued (636 outstanding offers)

- ZF Mgcawu: 5 695 offers issued (1 899 outstanding offers)

- Namakwa: 4 031 offers issued (121 outstanding offers)

Furthermore, the Department is in engagement with the Department of Social Development to see how best we can assist parents who have applied for Grade R, but cannot be accommodated at a public ordinary school due to limited spaces available. Parents who have specifically applied for middle grades,from one school to another, these applications will only be considered if school space does exist. 

The Online Admission System is currently open for late admissions. All parents/legal guardians that have not yet applied for learners admissions to a public ordinary school, must apply from 11-18 January 2021 using the www.ncdoeadmissions.org website. Parents that have already applied, must not apply again.

Parents who opt to decline the offer for placement will lose their place and will have to accept where there's available space. A parent who is dissatisfied with the decision of the District Director, may appeal to the Office of the MEC within 7 days. The parents will have to complete an Appeal form and submit it electronically to the Office of the MEC. The Department created a Google form for parents, which can be completed from the comfort of your home, cellphone or device. Parents should use the following link: tiny.cc/appeal2021, to complete their appeal. This will ensure that we adhere to the COVID-19 regulations and prevent parents from queuing at District offices and Walk-in Centres.

In conclusion, as part of our strategy to curb the spread of COVID-19 and adhere to all regulations and protocol, we urge parents to exhaust our online platforms before they make any physical contact with the Department.It is advisable for all parents to wait until they received an offer for placement before visiting the walk-in centres. The walk-in centres per District, will assist any parent who don't have access to the Online Admission System to either accept or decline their placement offer OR to submit a late admission application. If parents experience any technical challenges, we advise that you contact our technical call centre on any of the following numbers:

- 053 874 7239/7161/7292/7064/7189/7012.

Finally, we understand the frustration which this delay may have caused, but we appeal for your patience. All learners will be placed at a school, unfortunately the Department cannot guarantee placement at the preferred school. We have supplemented our teams working on the Admissions, in an effort to fasttrack the process of placement. We will keep the public regularly informed about the status and progress on the 2021 admissions.

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